Klein is a Canadian who likes to look at what is going
on across our southern border. In this book she starts by describing the
activities of a McGill University psychiatrist named Ewen Cameron. He
conducted a series of experiments on mentally ill individuals in the early
post-war and these came to the attention of the CIA who subsequently
supported his work. His theory was that the mentally ill could be healed
only if their mind was cleared of all accumulated ideas and memories. So
he achieved this with massive electrical shock treatments and some
chemicals which left the patients in a horrible state and incapable of
functioning.

For a time Cameron was highly regarded by his peers. He
was chosen president of the American Psychiatric Association, for example.
Ultimately, he was condemned by the profession and the CIA was
successfully sued by survivors.

Klein then makes a connection with the economic
philosophies of Milton Friedman and his group at the University of
Chicago. It was Friedman's belief that struggling economies needed the
same kind of sanitization as Cameron's patients. He first put
this into practise in Chile under the dictator Pinochet. A large segment
of his cabinet were graduates of Chicago, sponsored by several US
foundations. The policies imposed on the country- removal of all tariffs,
social assistance, minimum wages, food subsidies, unemployment
insurance and the imposition of a total free market economy resulted in
massive hardship, unemployment over 20% and so on. Of course, some people
did fairly well but the masses suffered horribly.

She then describes similar programs conducted with the
full force of the IMF and the US Treasury in other countries- Indonesia,
South Korea, post-apartheid South Africa, Russia, Poland and several
others. The results were generally similar to those in Chile- massive
unemployment, conversion of state assets to private holdings,
especially in Russia during the period when Boris Yeltsin demanded and
receive full dictatorial powers. In Poland, the very popular
Solidarity Party which came to power after the collapse of the Soviet
imposed Socialist Party, went along with the IMF furnished advisors for a
period until popular support was lost and the process was halted.
Nevertheless, this ended the political career of Solidarity and
Poland subsequently went through a more deliberate and less corrupt
process of converting from a state to a market economy.

Although Klein does not claim to be an expert on the
countries she deals with, she did have nationals assisting her with the
details. Her work seems to have stood up quite well and she recently
posted a response to her critics, who were neither numerous nor well based
in their arguments.

Murray Dobbin- The Myth of the Good Corporate
Citizen- Democracy Under the Rule of Big Business

Dobbin is also a Canadian, a journalist and media
analyst who has written on our politics for decades. This book was
published in 1998.

His theme is that we are dominated by our corporations
who dictate the national agenda. He gives a detailed account of the free
trade negotiations and the role played in the process by, especially, the
Business Council on National Interests and Tom d'Aquino, its CEO. He also
deals at length with the Fraser Institute, the CD Howe Institute and the
National Citizens Coalition. These groups are heavily funded by both
Canadian and foreign owned companies and they are closely linked to
similarly minded US associations, think tanks and "non-profit" research
institutes.

A quote from the US Trilateral Commission serves to set
the direction in which these groups wish to direct the country. "Some of
the problems of government in the United States today stem from the excess
of democracy". Dobbin points out how the citizenry is unable to see their
wishes reflected in government policy and programs. These are now set in
response to pressure exerted by Big Business, none better illustrated than
the FTA/NAFTA which caused the immediate loss of a quarter million
manufacturing jobs and utterly failed in its professed objective to bring
up our standard of living to equal that of the US. We have witnessed the
recent refusal of the US to abide by the terms of this treaty and the
abject caving in of the Harper government to US recalcitrance in imposing
clearly illegal duties on our softwood lumber. Of course, today we are
seeing the abject folly of tying our economy so closely to theirs. The
obviously more attractive social and environmental attitudes of the
Europeans are now being discovered. Whereas US public attitudes are moving
towards values like religion, patriotism, acceptance of violence and
ecological fatalism, we are going in the opposite direction, towards
values more common in the European Union. This should have been our
preferred trade partner, something slowly being recognized by the
Harperites.

This is a worthwhile book, if for no other reason than
that it makes us aware of how little the ordinary citizen affects and
influences national policies. Although somewhat repetitive, it fulfills an
important function in our so-so democracy.

Peter Goodchild- J. Robert Oppenheimer 'Shatterer
of Worlds'

Priscilla J. McLaughlin- The Ruin Of J. Robert
Oppenheimer and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race

These books cover the same ground with only small
differences in viewpoint. Goodchild's book was published in 1980 and was
based on the then recently declassified material from the AEC under
Carter's presidency. Goodchild had also produce a film which I have not
seen. McMillan's book came out in 2005.

The topic is Oppenheimer but the story is the
development of the bomb and the politics postwar relating to its potential
use and the posture to be adopted towards the Soviet Union. There is
serious human drama as to the effect these discoveries will have on the
human race and the prospects of avoiding nuclear Armageddon.

Oppenheimer was a brilliant scientist and a very able
organizer and manager without whom the bomb would not have been developed
in such a short time. He had the loyal allegiance of the Los Alamos
scientists and led them in a way which yielded their best performances.

An ongoing controversy developed between Edward Teller
and Oppenheimer before the bomb was achieved. Teller wanted a full effort
made in parallel on a fusion bomb whereas JRO realized that the smaller
weapon was terrible enough and there was no need for the Super.
This ultimately led to the establishment of the Livermore Laboratory as an
appeasement to Teller and against the strong advice of JRO.

After the war, as Oppenheimer's contract was about to
terminate, he was accused of and subjected to investigation of
disloyalty and having Communist friends and, possibly, leaking secrets to
the Soviets. Teller testified against him and JRO lost his security
clearance. This was terribly humiliating to a proud scientist and loyal
American citizen.

Teller claimed to be the inventor of the fusion bomb on
the patents issued for it. In fact, although he whiled away the war years
working on it, his theories were faulty and the crucial mathematical
contributions were made by a Polish-Jewish scientist named Stanislaw Ulam.
Teller gave him no credit. We can also note that it was Teller who
convinced Ronald Reagan to fund the Star Wars notion against the
considered judgment of virtually everyone.

JRO ended up at Princeton University and died in 1967
at the age of sixty-three.

These books give us much information about the
Manhattan project and the workings of the lab at Los Alamos. But they are
also insightful studies about human relationships, ambition and greed and
vengeance. The terrible power of nuclear weaponry is displayed and should
prompt readers to the realization that these are weapons that have no
place in civilization.

William N Hess- Fighting Mustang: The Chronicle
of the P-51

I picked this book up at a disposal sale at our
library. It is a well done work about a technically superior plane that
was produced in huge numbers- about 15,000. It had the speed and
performance of the Spitfire but vastly superior range due to a much more
efficient wing design. Of interest to those who like machines!